What Animals Are at Sarajevo Zoo?

Pionirska dolina, Sarajevo's zoo, lists 38 animal species on its own site today, from a lion, a brown bear and zebras down to chinchillas and ducks. You'll also find more unusual residents such as a serval, two raccoon relatives, gibbons and lemurs. It's a modest, neighbourhood collection rather than a safari park, so this list is close to everything you'll actually see in an afternoon, not a highlight reel.

What not to miss

Pionirska dolina is the oldest zoo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Sarajevo's Koševo neighbourhood. It very nearly didn't survive: during the 1992-95 war it was completely devastated, in both its buildings and its animal collection, and the last animal held there died on 5 November 1992. Reconstruction of the centre, and the slow work of restocking its collection, began as soon as the war ended.

Featured location Pionirska dolina Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Pionirska dolina is a zoo in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

What's there today is a working, if modest, collection: 38 species by the zoo's own count, against the 59 Wikipedia recorded in 2021. The carnivores run from a lion, a brown bear, a wolf and a fox to a serval and two raccoon relatives, the coati and the North American raccoon. The primates are gibbons, lemurs and rhesus macaques. Among the hoofed animals are zebras, donkeys and a pony, alongside Scottish Highland cattle, eland antelope, fallow deer, llamas and miniature goats. Birdlife covers peacocks, chickens and pheasants as well as swans, geese and ducks, and the reptile collection holds albino and ball pythons, iguanas, a caiman and tortoises. Rodent fans get chinchillas and Patagonian maras, and a single wallaby represents the marsupials.

Tickets and saving money

Admission follows a simple age scale, on the zoo's own price list, checked September 2026: free for children under 5, 2.50 KM for ages 5 to 15, and 5.00 KM for adults. If you're travelling as a larger group, it's worth booking ahead: parties of more than 50 people get a 20% discount on entry.

Best time to visit

The main gate is open 365 days a year, but the hours themselves shift by season rather than staying fixed, so check the zoo's own site before you go rather than assuming a summer closing time in winter, or the other way round.

Other wildlife nearby

If Pionirska dolina's collection feels compact, the country's best wildlife-watching isn't in a zoo at all. Hutovo Blato, a wetland reserve near Mostar, has been protected as a nature park since 1995, and more than 240 species of migratory bird pass through or nest around its Deransko Lake. It's a genuinely different way to see Bosnian wildlife than an afternoon at the zoo: binoculars and patience instead of enclosures.